Why does organizational culture matter for public employees’ innovative behavior?

ABSTRACT

The current research addressed two main research questions: (1) What antecedents in an organizational context are related to public employees’ innovative behaviors? (2) Does an innovative culture have moderating effects on the relationship between antecedents and innovative behaviors? Using a nationwide sample of South Korea government employees, the research explored the effects of expected antecedents on innovative behaviors using a random-coefficient model, which takes into account the variance of slopes and intercepts in a nested data structure. Results indicated, first, that job autonomy, goal clarity, cooperative communication, transformational leadership, and an innovative culture are positively associated with public employees’ innovative behaviors. Second, an innovative culture shows moderating effects only on goal clarity and transformational leadership.

KEYWORDS:

• Innovative behaviors
• innovative culture
• transformational leadership

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Geunpil Ryu

Geunpil Ryu, PhD, is an assistant professor of Department of Public Administration at Chonnam National University, South Korea. He earned his PhD degree in public administration at the State University of New York at Albany. His research focuses on public employees’ well-being, leadership development, and work motivation of public employees. He has several journal articles at Review of Public Personnel Administration, Public Performance & Management Review, and Public Personnel Management, etc.